Product Details

• Actors: Ed Gildersleeve, Nikki and Jessi Haddad, Courtney Sanford
• Directors: Eric Leiser
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Vanguard Cinema
• DVD Release Date: February 26, 2008
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000YOX3GK
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,354 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

IMAGINATION - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not sure what to think, July 15, 2009

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Imagination (DVD)

A passage early on shows a child playing with a zoetrope (a pre-camera gadget for simple animations). That foreshadows a wide variety of techniques in this imaginative film, including live action, stop animation, hand-drawn cel animation, and combinations of any two or three. Stop animation evokes Svankmajer's use live actors as animation puppets, as well as use of food. Some macabre, skeletal puppets also bring the Brothers Quay to mind. None of that implies that Leiser's style is at all derivative, however - every scene carries his distinctive imprint, including dramatic imagery around a major, catastrophic incident.

After the technique, Leiser's content seems much harder to capture. I found it easy to dislike the ineffectual psychiatrist and to feel for the desperate mother. The twins, however, remained enigmatic to me. They lived as a symbiotic pair in a world governed by beings with huge powers. Neither the nature of their bond nor the rules of that world ever came clear, however. I don't need to understand every part of a pattern in a movie or the reason for it, but I look to see that there is some pattern somewhere. This time, not enough parts came together for me to perceive that any unified whole existed at all.

When logical structure in a movie eludes me, whether or not I understand that structure, I look to the visuals to pull me along. Although strong, this movie's imagery didn't have quite the power that others do. Fans of surrealist animation will find a fair bit to enjoy here, but I can't say it's a must-have for any personal library.

-- wiredweird

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Imagination" lives up to it's title, December 29, 2008

By 

Sherlock Wooster - See all my reviews

This review is from: Imagination (DVD)

Imagination steps into the surreal world of twin sisters Anna and Sarah Woodruff (Nikki and Jessi Haddad) who have confronted their disabilities by turning inward to their own imaginations and shared alternate reality. One girl has been rendered blind; the other has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulty interacting and socializing with others. The girls' well intentioned but ill-equipped parents (Travis Poelle and Courtney Sanford) seek the aid of neuropsychologist Dr. Reineger (Edmund Gildersleeve) to chart a path to normalcy through the twins' mental shroud.

The girls' behavior becomes increasingly difficult for their parents to comprehend. Their food transcends the dinner plate to become living sculpture, and the girls play games in intricate, frenetic patterns that only minds in lockstep could achieve. Faced with the twins' increasingly apparent and unexplainable abilities to defy accepted science and medical knowledge, Dr. Reineger is consumed with a profound professional crisis. He cannot effectively treat the girls, nor can he decode the bewildering world they have built for themselves within their minds.

The film's real strength lies in its animation. Leiser's whimsical but intricate method recalls Czech surrealism and charts a brave experimental path, though he's not quite ready to stand on the podium with Jan Svankmajer. Nonetheless, Leiser's multifaceted abilities are put to great use in Imagination's engaging animated segments. His stop motion and puppetry work is spellbinding at times. Leiser also has some raw ability as a filmmaker beyond his wheelhouse of animation and sculpture, but Imagination's live action portions are less appealing.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dreams, August 19, 2010

By 

Jennifer M. Colville "Muna Esker" (London, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Imagination (DVD)

The appropriately-titled Imagination is a fascinating watch. Leiser, who has an animation background, employs every animation style he knows throughout the film, creating one of the most visually rich movies of recent years. A street full of stop-motion animated characters move about to the tunes of a quirky stop-motion band. An earthquake is represented as rocks rapidly disappearing one-by-one from stone walls and streets. As an otherworldly version of the girls wanders through a desert, time-lapse clouds whiz by overhead. Like an actual dream, you're never sure where this movie will take you next.Eclectic Shorts by Eric Leiser